Princeton researchers noted a fall in the number of times 'Facebook' was typed into Google as a search term. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

A striking study by researchers at Princeton University this week made headlines for its claim that Facebook would lose 80% of its users by 2017. Now, in an effort to point out flaws in the study, a Facebook analyst has applied similar methodology to predict the impending doom of Princeton University.

In a paper published earlier this week, John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler, from Princeton's mechanical and aerospace engineering department, compared Facebook’s spread to that of an infectious disease. After noting a fall in the number of times "Facebook" was typed into Google as a search term, they concluded that the population was gradually becoming immune to the attractions of the social network.

The research was widely picked up – including by the Guardian – and quickly went viral. Since then, commentators have lined up to debunk it, and Facebook itself stepped on on Thursday. Using Facebook Likes to illustrate the popularity of America's top universities, Mike Develin wrote:

﻿In keeping with the scientific principle 'correlation equals causation', our research unequivocally demonstrated that Princeton may be in danger of disappearing entirely.

Graphs published by Develin indicated that Harvard and Yale have peaked in popularity and are on the slide, while Princeton’s appeal has already crashed. To reinforce his point, Develin used Google Scholar to create a graph of the number of papers written by Princeton academics since 1940. His graph shows that since 2009, the percentage of “Princeton” papers has dropped steeply.

Develin then applied his methodology to the environment. He found searches for the term “air” had been gradually declining, suggesting “grievous consequences for the fate of humanity”.

In a postscript, Develin explained: “We don’t really think Princeton or the world’s air supply is going anywhere soon. We love Princeton (and air). As data scientists, we wanted to give a fun reminder that not all research is created equal – and some methods of analysis lead to pretty crazy conclusions.”

Other sites were less charitable about Cannarella and Spechler's claims, pointing out that the authors ignored Facebook’s own user data, which shows steady global growth, in favour of information from Google Trends, which appears to show declining interest.

Slate's Will Oremus in Slate pointed out that using search trends are not an accurate measure of site use.

﻿[Facebook's] widely accepted metrics, it seems, are of no interest to the paper’s authors. Instead, they pull their data exclusively from Google Trends, which measures the number of Google searches for a given keyword over time. In other words, the researchers’ claim that Facebook is faltering is based entirely on an apparent dip in the number of people typing “Facebook” into Google in 2013.

The tit-for-tat aside, Facebook has admitted that younger users in particular may be turning their backs on the social network. "We did see a decrease in daily users, specifically among younger teens," said its chief financial officer, David Ebersman, in October, reporting on a dip between the second and third quarter of 2013.

Despite a changing demographic, Facebook’s monthly active user numbers globally have been steadily increasing, and reached nearly 1.2 billion in October. Traffic from desktops computers is falling, but visits from smartphones and tablets is increasing. However, reliable information on whether mobile growth is making up for desktop shortfall in key markets such as Britain and the US is not available.

The company will update the markets with the publication of full-year results on 29 January.